


Only a thought away

by Dissenter



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Claire does not want to deal with this shit, Foggy and Matt don't know shit, Foggy and Matt know way too much about each others shit, Karen can kill you with her brain, Karen knows shit, Partial Mind Control, Secret community, Secrets, Telepath AU, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-04-05 02:00:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4161414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dissenter/pseuds/Dissenter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where people are telepaths, including Karen, Foggy, and Matt, and yet still Matt is able to keep the others from realizing he's Daredevil. Also there's a super secret telepath conspiracy that Karen may have sort of walked out on due to a family squabble, Wesley and Fisk beleive they're the only telepaths in the world, and there is finally something that Stick has no clue about (aside from emotions, which everyone already knew he was crap with.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Through the bottom of a glass

In Karen’s defence she did have a lot on her mind the first time she met Matt and Foggy, but still it was slightly embarrassing how long it took her to recognise them. They had slightly more of an excuse, she was the first other telepath they had met, it wasn’t surprising they didn’t realize. It actually wasn’t until everything had calmed down a bit, a couple of days later, that she noticed the faint insistent buzzing that marked the presence of another telepath. She felt like an idiot, the way those two were together, the way Matt seemed to know Foggy’s reactions without ever seeing his face, how Foggy looked up minutes before Matt walked through the door. Karen was willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that the two of them were in constant low level contact without even realizing it. They’d probably awoken together, contact with another latent telepath was one of the leading triggers for psychic awakening, and people who’d triggered each other’s telepathy tended to have a particularly close rapport.

She often wondered what it was like, suddenly being hit by the gift with no clue what was happening. Karen had grown up in a telepath family, she could thoughtspeak before she could talk, and she couldn’t imagine suddenly awakening to powers she thought were impossible. Maybe that was why most latents were only triggered by contact with others like them, so that they wouldn’t be left alone to feel as though they’d gone crazy.

As a more experienced telepath, she knew it was her job to introduce them to the community, teach them etiquette, control, all that sort of thing. It was one of the most basic laws of their kind, you don’t leave another thoughtspeaker out in the cold. It was an ideal she was in absolute support of in principle, it was just that the practice was turning out to be a bit harder than she thought. How the hell did you begin that conversation, she supposed she could contact her family and ask for advice, but given the way they’d parted she wasn’t prepared to start talking to them again just to admit she couldn’t handle a simple introduction. In the end she decided to just get Foggy drunk, he struck her as the slightly more relaxed, of the pair, and with the added effect of alcohol to soothe her nerves and soften his scepticism it seemed like the most practical option. Once Foggy knew, he could tell Matt.

They ended up getting slightly more drunk than Karen had planned, but that was possibly all to the good because Foggy didn’t so much as blink when she sent to him.

_Query Identify personal-concept-image?_ Instead he just replied.

_Identity-concept Talks-Away-Nightmares. Query mirror?_

His response relieved Karen, and the inclusion of a name proved that he and Matt were conscious enough of what they were doing not to influence people by accident. She was curious to know just how much they knew about what they were doing.

_Identity-concept Holds-The-Knife-By-The-Blade. Query knowledge self/abilities/power present/absent?_

_Unknown, belief alone/unique/different, only other Fights-While-Wounded, us two alone. Afraid, secretsecret, confusion, Us-Against-The-Dark, query others present/absent_

It was at this point Karen decided to switch back to verbal speech, thoughtspeech might be honest and good for explaining things that can’t be put into words but it could be downright frustrating when trying to hold a linear conversation.

“So is Matt “Fights-While-Wounded”?”

“Yeah, I used to wonder about that name, but knowing him like I do it kinda fits. No matter how awful he’s feeling he will not stop doing what he thinks is right.” Foggy grinned

“And your name?”

“Well it seems to be working for you. I’ve always had a knack for babbling at people until the bad thoughts go away. I have to do that for Matt quite a lot.” Karen nodded in acknowledgement.

“So I have to ask, how much do you know about what you are?”

“Honestly, not that much. Most of it is just what me and Matt have been able to work out by trial and error, lots and lots of error. Some of it we’re still not sure of. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you might know a bit more.” Foggy grinned at her hopefully.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m not exactly an expert or anything but I grew up psi, so I know things you probably don’t, especially about the community as a whole.”

“There’s a whole community… like an uber secret telepath conspiracy network wow cool.. Anyway back to the point, in that case I kinda need to ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“Is it… normal, for us to always be in each other’s heads? I mean, it’s not as bad now as it was, but I mean, he’s just always there, like an extra heartbeat or something, and I know when he’s in trouble, or upset, and I just wanted to know if that was a normal telepath thing or if it was just me and Matt.” Karen sobered instantly.

“Well, what you’re describing now is about standard for a pair of people who triggered each other’s latent telepathy, especially in people who are close with each other. Apparently it’s an instinctive thing, you latch onto the first other compatible mind you encounter. You said it was bad before?”

“I used to wake up screaming from Matt’s nightmares, Matt would end up woozy whenever I went out drinking, it got to the point where we did pretty much everything together, just because it was too hard trying to keep two separate lives straight. I mean I love Matt to pieces, but it’s not a nice feeling, losing track of your own identity.”

“Ok that sounds like fairly standard lack of control, perfectly normal in beginners, I’d be worried if that was still an issue, but you said it was better. Can you block each other out when you need to?”

“Oh yes, we can even keep our sex lives to ourselves these days.”

“Then relax, you two are perfectly normal. Well for a given value of normal. Welcome to the uber secret, telepath conspiracy network.” She smirked. Foggy downed another shot of eel juice before, making an announcement.

“We should totally get completely pissed to celebrate this momentous occasion.”

“We should. It feels a bit mean though, leaving Matt out of the celebrations.” Foggy waved her off.

“Chill, he’s totally having sex right now, he’ll get all pissed if we interrupt. We can celebrate again tomorrow when we tell Matt this shit, that way we get two celebrations.”

“I thought you could block out each other’s sex lives.”

“Well yeah, I couldn’t give you all the kinky details, which is a relief let me tell you but he’s blocking me. It’s basically like the telepathic equivalent of a sock on the door. It’s not like there’s any other reasons he’d be locking me out.”

Several drinks later they decided it would be hilarious to go and bother Matt anyway. The next morning they were glad that Matt had apparently spent the night at his girlfriend’s, thus thwarting their foolproof plan to explain the situation to him. Revealing the whole telepathy thing as a karaoke number, was in retrospect the kind of idea that only seemed good after you’d drunk the eel. They swore an oath over their coffee, to never ever tell Matt what they’d planned to do.


	2. Two way mirror

The strain of keeping Foggy out of his head was almost more than Matt could handle. Pain was always the hardest thing to shield. That was something that Matt knew and Foggy didn’t because Foggy had never seriously tried to block his pain from Matt. He only ever really blocked Matt out for sex, and sex was comparatively easy to shield. Pain though, Matt suspected it was because the primary purpose of their weird connection was so that they’d be able to tell when the other was in trouble.

Lying on a stranger’s couch, battered and bloody, the only reason he was able to keep the situation from Foggy was because Foggy was too polite to intrude on thoughts that Matt was trying to keep private. The slightest push at his barriers and Foggy would know everything.

Matt tried focusing in on the issue at hand. Claire, she said her name was, and that sixth sense that had turned up around the time he and Foggy had started to get lost in each other’s heads told him that he could trust her. When the Russian showed up and he _knew_ with a precision that went beyond hearing the man’s heartbeat that he hadn’t brought Claire’s lies, that he was calling for backup, Matt hadn’t hesitated.

Ten minutes later he and Claire were on the roof with an unconscious gangster, and it wasn’t quite like debating on the same team as Foggy, but there was an echo of that feeling, that synchronicity. United purpose, knowing what was needed, knowing just where to pick up when the other left off, Claire’s cold and clinical instructions on inflicting pain, providing the perfect unsettling counterpoint to his violent aggression, their emotions feeding off each other in a feedback loop that ended with him throwing the man off the building and not even thinking to check he was alive until after. It wasn’t like it was between him and Foggy, but it was similar enough to be deeply unsettling.

He’d had no time to think about it then, not with a little boy to rescue. But later that night, as he tried to ignore the pain from bruises and knife wounds, he wondered. He’d thought it as just him and Foggy, some kind of weird connection the two of them had, but now he was picking something up off of Claire, weaker, but not dissimilar, and Karen, sometimes he felt like she wasn’t there at all, almost as though she was shielding… and then there was the fact that he’d known for years that he had a better handle on people’s emotional states and honesty than just hearing their heartbeat could explain. A heart could beat fast or slow, for all number of reasons, it was only context that gave it meaning and yet Matt just _knew_ , whether it indicated guilt, or lust, or fear. As he thought he came to a terrifying conclusion, the thing with him and Foggy, it wasn’t just with him and Foggy. It was bigger than that. It’s ridiculous that it took this thing with Claire to make him admit it to himself, but truthfully, he had never wanted it to be bigger. The connection between him and Foggy, invasive, and bizarre, and improbable though it was, was one thing in his life that was completely safe. No matter how wrong anything else went, no matter who else might walk out on him, there was always Foggy at the back of his mind, as present as his own heartbeat and twice as steady, with the rock solid certainty that it was the two of them against the world. Admitting that it was more than the two of them, that it was bigger than just them, it felt like the ground being pulled out from under him. He didn’t sleep easy that night.

 

The next day Foggy and Karen both came in with the worst kind of zombifying hangovers. Matt would have mocked them, but their alcohol induced misery made it easier for him to conceal his own condition. Sober people tended to be more suspicious of bad excuses. The two of them seemed closer than they had last night, closer in the “we’ve got a secret that you don’t know” way, not in the “we hooked up last night” way. Honestly Matt would have preferred the hookup, messy though it may have gotten. There were more than enough secrets floating around this firm already.

Matt was already in a bad mood when the man walked in, and it wasn’t improved any by Foggy’s attempts to suck up to a potential paying client. The man made Matt’s skin crawl, and judging by her reaction to him Karen felt it too. Foggy must be more hung-over than Matt had thought if he couldn’t pick up on the bad vibes, it was worse than working at Landman and Zack had been. Foggy may have had a point about needing more paying customers, but if he had sensed what Matt had sensed off this guy there was no way he consider working for him.

Foggy’s hangover had mostly worn off by the time they met the client, and it showed. Foggy knew exactly what their client was. As he put it “a shark in a skinsuit”. Now it was Matt’s turn to try and convince Foggy to ignore his instincts, because Matt needed information. And it cut Matt to the bone when Foggy reminded him they’re meant to be a team, because for all their bizarre connection the secret of Matt’s night-time activities was starting to come between them like a piece of one way glass. A mirror that Matt could see through but Foggy couldn’t. Matt wondered just when he’d got so good at keeping secrets from someone who could read his mind. On impulse he reached out to Foggy.

_Trust, Us-against-the-dark, action necessary, apology for discussion absence, still friend/ally/partner/brother/love, always, query?_

Foggy’s response was as reassuring as it ever had been, the sheer comfort and certainty that came from mind to mind communication easing Matt’s fears.

_Trust, angry at undiscussed action, Fights-while-wounded reckless/inconsiderate/annoying but love/trust/follow anyway. Us-against-the-dark_

Matt knew Foggy was telling the truth, there’s no way to lie when they talk like that, but there was still something Foggy wasn’t telling him. Honestly Foggy looked almost like he wanted to tell him, but he held back, mumbled something out loud about them needing to talk later and the conversation drifted back to the case. Matt knows that he’s in no position to be throwing stones, but still knowing Foggy is keeping something from him is an unpleasant reminder of the new separation between them and Matt _hates_ it. Hates it with the kind of burning rage he carries with him out onto the streets, and marks out on the skins of his enemies with black, blue, and purple marks.

The client kills himself, awash with the kind of fear that drains the rage from Matt leaving him sick and alone, and wondering just what kind of man could terrify a shark like Healy so much. Matt wishes he could lean on Foggy for this, get support, ideas, even just a sympathetic ear, but he can’t bring himself to drag Foggy into this. He has no right to use their connection to drag his friend into this mess, Foggy should have the right to find his own problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so i'm not entirely happy about this chapter. I'd originally intended to include a lot more Claire in this chapter, but it ended up mostly focused on Matt and Foggy. I'll try and make up for it later. Oh and basically the reason Foggy hasn't told Matt about everything yet is because he want's to have a proper sit down discussion with Karen and lots of booze, rather than blurting it out in the middle of a case, but because Matt has issues he's immediately jumped to the conclusion that Foggy is keeping secrets from him. Yes they're both idiots, Karen is probably going to have to bash their heads together a bit.


	3. Sunlight off a polished blade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely happy with this chapter but it has helped me get a better picture of where this fic is going.

The man from Union Allied made Karen feel dirty. He wanted her to keep her mouth shut, to lie to cover up their secrets. He offered her blood money. She didn’t want it. She could tell exactly how little her life meant to him, how little poor Daniel’s death meant. He didn’t think of them as real people, real human beings. Daniel had a wife and kids for god’s sake, and this man wasn’t just acting like he felt nothing. Karen desperately extended her thoughts trying to pick up on any hint of sympathy or shame, and there was nothing. He genuinely didn’t care.

Karen did care, so she went to see Daniel’s widow. Her heart was still wide open and the waves of grief and suppressed guilt coming from that house were almost enough to knock her off her feet. There was anger there too, Karen didn’t need to be a telepath to pick up on that.

“My husband was found dead in your apartment, you have no idea how any of this is for me.” Anger battered against Karen’s shields, anger but no true hate. It wasn’t Karen that this woman blamed for her husband’s death. Not that that stopped Karen from blaming herself.

“Nothing ever happened between me and Daniel.” Karen knew even as she said it that Mrs Fisher didn’t believe it had. She had trusted her husband, still did even in death.

“Whatever it is you're after, Miss Page, I can't help you.” She said, and Karen could almost taste the feelings of shame and despair. After that she knew all of her arguments were useless. Mrs Fisher had given up, there would be no help from her. Karen tried anyway, reminded her that these people were murderers, that they shouldn’t have the right to sweep Danny’s death under the rug like it never happened. That they should be stopped. It didn’t work.

“I told him that whatever it was, he had a responsibility to do something about it.” She said “I figure I have a couple years before I explain that part to my kids.” And the soul stifling guilt was almost enough to make Karen understand why she was letting the bastards get away with it. Then the woman had mentioned her kids, and Karen had almost felt bad for pushing her. It wasn’t her place to decide whether justice for a dead husband, should take precedence over safety for living children. It was a choice Karen was glad she wouldn’t have to make, all she had to lose was her life. Her life and the bond that she was slowly developing with Foggy and Matt. And while mentoring them was her responsibility, they were grown men who had been coping with their powers perfectly adequately before she arrived. She could take risks that Mrs Fisher could not.

Admittedly she may have slightly miscalculated the risks. Going to that auction hadn’t been the smartest decision she could have made, but she’d been hoping that if she could get a good scan of the surface thoughts of whoever showed up from Union Allied she might have a better idea of where to find evidence against them. It had been lucky that Ben Urich had shown up when he did, that had been a shock.

She’d wondered how she’d managed to misread him so badly. She had honestly believed he was going to let it go, but thinking about it she’d never managed to get much past his most immediate surface emotions. Almost like he’d… No it couldn’t be. But it made sense. It was possible for a non-telepath to obscure their thoughts and feelings from a telepath by focusing only on their most immediate feelings. When he’d said he’d gotten old and less stupid, he’d managed to use his feelings of bitterness, and obsolescence, and bone deep tiredness, to block her from sensing the deception beneath his words. That worn and cynical didn’t mean beaten, and that just because he was warning her to leave it alone didn’t mean he would.  But if he was deflecting her that would mean… He knew, he knew about telepaths, and what they could do, and most likely suspected she was one. Either that or he was walking around with shields up all the time, and no-one was that paranoid.

“You know what I am.” She breathed, still staring at him in shock. He started in surprise.

“What you are?” then suddenly realization caught up with him and he paled “You’re a psychic?”

“You mean you didn’t know? You were shielding, why would you be shielding unless you thought I was…?”

“I always shield, it’s not like telepaths announce themselves. I’ve always figured better safe than sorry.  Although I have to say, to be honest I mostly figured the shielding would have degraded by now. It’s been a long time since I knowingly dealt with a telepath.” Of course, and without a telepath friend to tell you if what you were doing was working the skill was almost impossible to maintain.

“And yet you still keep your shields up constantly?”

“What can I say some lessons stick with you even years later. So they’re still good enough to keep you out?” She thought about it for a moment and gave his shields a cursory prod before answering.

“They probably wouldn’t have if I’d known they were there, but I honestly wasn’t expecting them so they were enough to keep me from looking closer. If you wanted to practice I’d be willing to help you.” That surprised him.

“I thought the old families were against normals being taught to deflect reads.” Which was true as far as it went but there was little policing of that, and in any case it had been a long time since Karen had cared about following her family’s rules.

“Me and my family don’t see eye to eye on much. That’s why I live here in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the country. It reduces the likelihood of having to deal with them.” She thought about what he’d said for a moment. “Anyway how on earth do you know so much about telepath culture?”

“That’s a long story, from a long time ago. The grand tale of Dances-on-the-Edgeand Finds-the-Truth, and their ill-advised road trip across America. I’ll tell it to you sometime. If you manage not to get yourself killed. What were you thinking going to that auction?”

After that he proceeded to give her a thorough dressing down for reckless and irresponsible behaviour, followed by a crash course in how to investigate bad people without having those same bad people do bad things to you. It was both informative and intimidating, and by the end of their conversation she had agreed to help him brush up on his telepath shields, in exchange for teaching her not to get herself killed. Karen felt less alone than she had at any time since she broke the bond with her family. It was nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dances-on-the-Edge was Matt's grandfather, Ben does not know this, since after their wild road trip he never saw the man again. This will become relevant later in the story.


	4. Caught between two mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire gets her own chapter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Claire's life becomes altogether too interesting, and denial is not a river in egypt

Claire wondered just exactly when her life had stopped making sense. Ok, no, that was a lie, she knew exactly when her life had stopped making sense. It was around about the time she found a half dead vigilante in the dumpster outside her building and decided to take him home to her place rather than doing the sensible thing and calling 911. It was like the universe had decided, ok if you can’t make the sensible decision then there’s no real reason for your life to make sense at all is there, and decided to throw all the ridiculousness it possibly could in her direction. Now somehow she had become the vigilante equivalent of a mob doctor, at some point she was probably going to have to come up with a really good excuse for what she was doing with all the bandages she’d nicked from the hospital supply cupboard, and for some reason she kept on guessing other people’s thoughts in a really freaky and unnatural way that couldn’t be telepathy because telepathy didn’t exist. It was body language that was it, body language and nurse’s instincts, all totally explainable, sleep deprivation had just made her more perceptive, and she was totally blaming it all on Mike.

Despite all of it though she still finds herself rather liking Mike. It’s completely irrational of course. The man threw a guy off the roof and left him in a coma, he _tortured_ the man. But then that wasn’t all him was it? She’d helped, she’d told him just what to do to make the bastard talk, and she’d _enjoyed_ it in ways she was still finding hard to rationalise. Yes the man was a gangster and a killer and an all ‘round nasty piece of work, but she was supposed to be a nurse. She wasn’t supposed to like torturing people.  It was just… the energy up on that roof, between her and Mike, between the two of them and their prisoner, bouncing back and forth between them, amplifying the predatory instincts, emphasising the _us/together/tribe/ally_ of her and Mike, against the _other/enemy/threat/obstacle_ of the Russian. God it sounded ridiculous, but she could almost feel her masked ally’s temper building up to the point where he threw the man off the roof, and she had wanted him to do it. She’s not sure how to deal with that.

But despite it all she finds herself liking Mike, and so when he gave her the burner phone with a feeling of _protectiveness/friendship/trust_ that she half believed she wasn’t imagining, she took it without arguing. Instead pushing to find out what he was doing, how she could help. Wilson Fisk, a name nobody had heard and yet still it gave her the chills. She covered her irrational sense of unease by suggesting the informant may have lied, and there was something in Mike’s voice when he said it was the man’s heartbeat that would have told him if he was lying. It felt almost like the truth but not quite, and it brought to mind things Claire’s mother had once said, about people who knew things they shouldn’t, about the world, about other people, things that Claire hadn’t believed, hadn’t wanted to believe. It was uncomfortable so she pushed it aside, but as the day went on and the uncomfortable feeling of _danger/nearby/be careful_ grew stronger she wondered if she shouldn’t have examined it further.

After the Russians grabbed her she didn’t wonder anymore. Desperation overrode her scepticism, and even though she couldn’t get to the phone somehow she was able to call Mike anyway. Only in her mind he wasn’t Mike, and all she could send were images and feelings. A cry for help. A scream that wasn’t a scream, silent except in her head.

_Fights-while-wounded help, danger here/now/bad. Hurry, afraid, badmen smell-of-gunpowder-and-blood. Help._

And she _felt/heard/saw_ his response in her mind.

_Trust/coming/will protect, Heals-at-midnight stay strong/fight/survive, Fights-while-wounded will come. Trust. Shelter-in-the-night._

And it was impossible, and incredible, and she almost couldn’t believe it was real, except that if it wasn’t real then no-one was coming for her, and no-one would save her and she couldn’t let her mind go down that road. So she believed in the impossible because it was she needed to believe, and even after they knocked her out and dragged her to a warehouse and interrogated her she still believed he would come for her. When the lights go out and the Russians start going down she isn’t surprised. _Fights-while-wounded_ has come for her just like he promised, and she knows in a part of her mind that is beyond words that he keeps his promises.

She keeps her mouth shut, resists even though she doesn’t really know anything, and the slick hard edges of her captor’s minds as they ask her questions, as they hurt her only strengthen her resolve to tell them nothing. She can feel their intent, knows that as soon as she breaks she’s a deadwoman, knows that as soon as they decide she’s not going to break she’s a deadwoman. So she wavers, dissembles, spits, and snarls, gives the impression that she knows more than she’s saying, trying to keep herself alive in the face of _job to be done/no loose ends/just another day at the office/find the bastard,_ and all she can do is stall until he gets here, but it’s enough. It’s enough, when the lights go down and _Fights-while-wounded_ engulfs her in a sense of _shhhh/safe/here now, protect you, strike down the enemy, shelter-in-the-night, safe now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Matt may have a bit of explaining to do next chapter.


	5. Light in the window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt owes Claire an explaination

Matt didn’t know what to do. He’d rescued Claire or _Heals-at-midnight_ as his subconscious keeps insisting he call her. She was safe from the Russians now, hiding out in his apartment, but shit he’d fucked up so badly. He’d _done_ something to her, he could _see/feel/taste_ it. She was different, changed. She’d screamed to him in his head, she’d heard him _speaking_ to her without words, like Foggy did. Shit what was he going to do? Was this going to be like the early days with him, and Foggy, drowning in each other’s thoughts and feelings? He wasn’t sure he could go through that again.

He couldn’t let himself panic. He’d fucked up her life so badly, she didn’t even know how badly yet, but if he panicked it was just going to form a feedback loop and that wasn’t going to help anyone. He suppresses the panic but that does nothing for the guilt. Before he knew it he was bombarding her with his feelings of _shame/inadequacy/failure/what am I even doing,_ as he apologised for screwing up her life, for making things worse as he tries to make them better, but then she’s comforting him in ways that only Foggy has ever been able to do before. Projecting _safe/trust/believe in you_ as she asks him to listen to her heartbeat, and he thinks it should feel more wrong than it does, but then he’s hardly an expert. Up to this point he’d believed he and Foggy were alone in the world. In retrospect he probably should have realized how improbable that was, but the whole thing had been so improbable from the start he’d found it hard to apply logic to the situation. He really should have known better.

Claire is terrified, and traumatised, and apparently newly telepathic, and as far as Matt is concerned that makes her his responsibility. But she is also a grown woman and when she tells him she trusts him, that she believes in what he is doing, he has to respect that. He does respect that. He knows bone deep, that she is following her conscience as much as he is following his, and she has her own reasons for supporting his actions. And she resisted torture for him. She refused to talk to the Russians even when she was alone, and afraid, with no logical reason to think anyone was coming for her. Even though she didn’t know anything important to begin with and it would have been so easy to hand over what she did know and justify it as harmless information, but she didn’t give an inch. She is a grown woman, tough, and loyal to the bone, and she has earned the right to his name, both of them. She already has his heartname, his _personal-identity-concept/thought/image,_ she screamed in her mind for _Fights-while-wounded_ and it doesn’t feel right for her to know that and yet still not know the name his father gave him. So he gives her his name, because she has earned it, because he owes it, because he trusts her.

“Mathew, my name is Mathew” he says, and he can feel something almost like the bond he shares with Foggy, although not nearly as strong, start to settle between them.

“Mathew huh.” She responds “I don’t suppose you’re going to elaborate on why I keep thinking of you as Fights-while-wounded.” Matt squirms a little before answering. There’s no real way for this to not sound crazy but he definitely owes her an explanation.

“Because you’re kind of telepathic.”

“Telepathic? You expect me to believe that.” She’s trying very hard to sound sceptical, but not quite managing to pull it off.

“I think you already do.” He gives her a quiet grin to break the tension, and she responds with a sigh.

“Yeah, I guess we’re a bit past the point of scepticism aren’t we. So tell me, what do I need to know? How does it work? Can I read anyone’s mind or is it just you?”

“Well, the thing is, I don’t actually know.”

“What, do you mean you don’t actually know?” Claire is doing a very good impression of not panicking, but her heartbeat betrays her, well that and the feelings that are bleeding through their freaky new psychic connection.

“It’s not like it comes with a manual. All I know is not long after me and my friend Foggy met we started talking to each other in our heads. We just thought we were really in sync to start with. We only figured out something more was going on when we started to lose track of who did what the previous day. I ended up convinced I’d gone to Foggy’s Punjabi class. I never even studied Punjabi, and yet I sleep talked in it for months. It got so bad at one point we were answering to each other’s names and accidentally coming on to each other’s dates.” That had been a bad time, he carefully avoids projecting just how bad, but he suspects she gets the idea anyway.

“Shit. You must have gotten control over it somehow though.”

“Yeah after a few months we figured out how to build shields. That was a relief let me tell you. Now we can generally keep each other out of our heads if we want to, although stuff still bleeds through sometimes. It’s a lot better now.”

“Is that how it’s going to be for you and me?” Her voice is steady but her mind is racing, he tries to reassure her.

“I honestly don’t know. Before this happened I honestly thought it was just me and Foggy. I hope not. I’m pretty sure if you start trying to build shields now you’ll get the hang of it long before it gets that bad though.” Matt has never claimed to be particularly _good_ at reassuring people.

“Well I can see this is going to be a barrel of laughs.”

“It’s not that bad. I mean yeah it was hard at first but I wouldn’t want to not have it now. It’s comforting, Foggy always being there at the back of my mind, always being able to talk to him, rely on him. I never realized how alone I was until I wasn’t anymore. Besides, it’s always handy to know what the opposition is thinking.”

“So you can read other people’s mind’s too?” The panic was starting to subside in favour of cautious interest.

“Sort of. I mean I can get surface images, impressions, emotions. I can’t dig through someone’s head and get specific information or anything, but I can usually manage a general idea of what someone’s thinking in the moment.”

“Hmm tell me more. That sounds useful.” At least she wasn’t freaking out anymore, although he wasn’t sure the excited curiosity that replaced it was going to be much more fun to deal with in the short term. He was going to be up answering questions all night, he could just tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking back to Foggy and Karen next chapter.


	6. Through a glass darkly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fisk interlude. In a slightly different style to the rest of the fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to take a quick step back to show what's going on, on the villains side of things. More of an overview than what i'm trying to do with the rest of it, but it's got important details that will probably be relevant later.

When Wilson awakened he was utterly alone. No that wasn’t right. His mother was there, and his father, and all the other people on his floor, in his building, down his street. He could _feel/taste/smell_ them all, the petty grievances and small miseries, all overlaid with his father’s _anger/pride/insecurity/rage_ and his mother’s _love/hate/fear/protect._ He could feel all of that and yet still he was alone. There was no-one else who could feel it, who could stabilise him, there was no-one to bond with. Not that he knew that was the problem at the time, but in hindsight that was the problem. Awakened by trauma, alone, as no telepath should be.

He struck in a daze, his father’s anger, and his mother’s fear, mingling with his own, and he didn’t stop hitting until his father’s soul went quiet. _Strikes-in-anger_ it was his first name, and for some parts of him it will always be his name. Names change sometimes, if people do. But people change less than is commonly believed, and it is hard to cast away something so truly a part of yourself.

His mother recovered before he did. Helpless fear shifting like night to day into the ruthless protectiveness of a she wolf guarding her cub. _Hides-the-bodies._ It was a name she earned in full. She hid the body, made sure no-one would ever know. Protected her son even as the madness seeped in. The hearing but not being heard, the aching feel of _alone/lost/adrift,_ His mother protected him but she was no telepath, and while she could protect him from the world she could not anchor him in the way he needed.

He’d travelled later. Had tried to find out what he was, if he was alone. He’d found… fragments, bits here and there, knowledge, advice, secrets. Nothing solid, on its own, but together, it was enough to help him understand what he was, what he was missing. Then he met Wesley, and everything fell into place. He was _not alone never again_ with Wesley a solid, quiet, reliable _presence_ at the back of his mind. Absolute trust because neither of them had the skill of hiding things from each other, and Wesley’s steady devotion helped smooth out the rough edges of _anger/guilt/doubt_  that sometimes surfaced. Wesley helped him change his name, from _Strikes-in-anger,_ to _Tears-down-the-past,_ helped him believe that he could change the world, bring about a better, brighter future.

Telepathy had been… useful, in running a criminal empire. It helped him know which way people were going to jump, who might be a problem, where people’s weaknesses were. Wesley was better at that then he was. Less prone to getting caught up in it all, overwhelmed by his own reactions. Wesley’s awakening had after all been rather quiet, and all the information Wilson had been able to gather on the subject indicated that traumatic awakenings led to a certain… instability. Wilson Fisk had awoken in rage and terror and blood, utterly alone, while James Wesley had awoken slowly, as he spent more and more time with an already awoken telepath, had bonded with Wilson as soon as he came on line and so he was a great deal more stable. The bond was a stabilising influence for Wilson as well but in many ways it was too little too late.

_Ties-up-the-loose-ends_ Wilson called him in his heart and soul, and wondered if it was his fault Wesley had to bear that name. James never complained though, just quietly worked to make Wilson’s dreams reality. Stood as shield and shadow on the edge of Wilson’s soul, and his death ripped a hole in Wilson, as deep and wide as the ocean.

He should have been listening in. He should have been paying attention, but Wesley had always been such a constant. He hadn’t known to be afraid for him. Too busy being afraid for Vanessa. Beautiful, brilliant, Vanessa. As stunning and tough as diamonds. She was no telepath but her honest, unwavering support, the love he hadn’t known he wanted, had been almost as much of a stabilising influence as his bond with Wesley. She’d been poisoned, had nearly died, his beloved _Seller-of-dreams_ and he’d been so afraid. So he’d focused on her, shoved his bond with Wesley to the back of his mind, and out of respect, Wesley had kept his thoughts and actions out of Wilson’s way.

Wilson knew Wesley hadn’t seen it coming, he’d known Wesley had gone off to threaten someone on his behalf, routine, nothing to worry about, and so Wilson hadn’t worried. He hadn’t been paying attention, he hadn’t known he needed to and by the time he did it was too late to know anything for sure. Wesley had been threatening someone and it had gone bad, so bad so quickly, and Wilson had felt the _pain behind the eyes, desperation/fear/don’t want to die, so sorry don’t want to leave you,_ him, deep inside in the place where he was still _Strikes-in-anger._ One moment Wesley had been a familiar presence at the back of his mind, while Wilson panicked about Vanessa, the next there was an aching chasm where Wesley should have been and Wilson was a mess of _rage/hate/grief need vengeance, find out who did this, make them BLEED._ Even Vanessa’s waking hadn’t helped, although her loyalty, her refusal to abandon him was probably all that held him together.

He remembered how things had been before Wesley, _overwhelmed/adrift/alone_ but this was ten times worse, what had been a dull ache, a sense of something missing was now a bleeding wound, like one of his vital organs had been ripped from his body. It was no wonder really that things started to unravel. His _supporters/allies/not quite enemies,_ could smell blood in the water. He’d always been wary of them. It didn’t take a telepath to know that Owlsley would always take care of number one, or that Nobu had his own agenda and masters that Fisk could not touch. As for Madame Gau, there was something _wrong/alien/twisted_ about the taste of her thoughts. Deep down in a primitive, animal part of his brain, he knew she wasn’t human, could not be held to human motivations or morals, and he _feared_ her.

His supporters smelled blood in the water and abandoned him. His enemies smelt it too, and came after him. The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. He’d felt something from the man. He’d written it off the first time they met but the man was a telepath. He had almost laughed at the irony. Dark reflections of each other indeed. Right down to the psychic powers, and the _rage_ that another telepath couldn’t help but feel. Wesley was dead, and he still wasn’t alone. When your friends are all gone your enemies still remain. There was a twisted kind of comfort to be found in that. He wouldn’t kill the devil when Vanessa got him out, make him suffer no doubt about it, but he’d rather leave his worst enemy breathing than be _alone_ again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah I'm really behind on this one. If I do season two it will be in a separate fic.


	7. Glass houses and other fragile things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hell's kitchen blows up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karen's chapter again

Sometimes, growing up in a family of telepaths left a person uniquely unsuited to passing for normal. She hadn't even realised Senora Cardenas was speaking Spanish until Matt pointed it out. She thought she’d covered quite well. It hadn't even been a lie really, she _had_ taken Spanish in high school. She just hadn't been anywhere near good enough to follow what Senora Cardenas was saying without a little extra help. It was a hazard, growing up as a telepath you tended to end up focusing on the meaning behind the words more than the words themselves, and so when people started speaking in a different language sometimes it took a moment to register that she didn't understand what they were actually saying out loud. She was a little surprised Matt didn't notice, but then he had seemed preoccupied lately. Foggy noticed, she could tell, but fortunately Foggy was respectful enough of other people’s privacy not to call her out.

Still she should have known better. It’d been years since she left home, and she’d been passing ever since. That was an amateur slip up and if she ended up being the one to expose telepathy to the world at large her family would never let her hear the end of it. She’d told them she was fine on her own, that they were a bunch of behind the times relics who didn’t understand the modern world, that they should stop their controlling meddling ways, and that she was going out into the real world and to hell with their secret community. She’d even slammed the door on the way out. If she outed herself by accident the “I told you so’s” would never end and she refused to give those fuckers the satisfaction.

She was shaken by her almost slip up so she was hypercautious going into Landman and Zack. Maybe too much so, she watched and listened, and answered only when Marcie spoke out loud, and she was so very careful not to react to what the woman was thinking. It worked, Marcie didn’t look twice at her, but that left Foggy without backup. She felt a little bad, but then Foggy demonstrated in no uncertain terms that he didn’t need any backup. Matt might be the better courtroom lawyer, dashing and charismatic and convincing, but here dancing with words, and intentions, and politics in the lobby of his opponent’s lair Foggy was in his element. She could see how he picked up on every little insecurity and doubt and angle to undermine the opposition, and even she, a trained telepath couldn’t say for sure how much of it was instinct and body language and how much was straight up mindreading. Karen found herself deeply impressed.

She was even more impressed, and slightly concerned that Foggy had actually _dated_ Marcie. That woman was terrifying. Not bad, deep down, Karen could see why Foggy was drawn to her, that decency and determination buried under layers of carefully cultivated self-interest. But still terrifying, intimidating, a force of nature. Her mind was all stainless steel and bulletproof glass and _edges,_ and for Foggy as a telepath to have dated someone like that indicated a worrying masochistic streak, and no small amount of stubbornness. Karen always was a sucker for the stubborn ones. She grinned at the thought of what her fledgling telepath could do with the proper training, after all, half of all telepathic techniques boiled down to force of will.

That night they went and visited Mrs Cardenas, and managed to get drunk again. Just a little. She could feel the ragged edges of her mind and Foggy’s blending together the more they talked, not nearly so deep and solid as Foggy’s bond with Matt, but not weak or shallow either. They talked about Marcie, about Matt, about Foggy’s past, and Foggy sensed instinctively that Karen wasn’t ready to talk about her own. It was nice, good, but Karen also felt more than a little guilty, because Matt wasn’t there, and he should be. Because he was Foggy’s partner, heart and soul and he was just as much her little fledgling as Foggy was, and it wasn’t fair for them to keep excluding him, not telling him things he had every right to know.  

She asked Foggy to touch her face, to give her a sense of what it would be like if all three of them were there as they should be, and then the world went to hell. Explosions, pain and oh God she could _hear/feel/sense_ the screaming. An entire city screaming. She knew Foggy could feel it too, and Mrs Cardenas was right there and Karen could _see/smell/taste_ her pain and fear on the air. Both of them could feel it so Karen did what she could for Mrs Cardenas, and Foggy went out to see what else he could do. For all their psychic powers neither of them had any way of seeing this coming, and Karen wasn’t quite sure what to do with that fact. For most of her life telepathy had been reason, and justification, and power, and to have it fall short, be _not enough/no use/chocolate fireguard in a blast furnace_ was disconcerting to say the least. The world had come apart and all her power could do was let her listen to the screaming.

Then Foggy realised he couldn’t sense Matt and it was suddenly so much worse. He thought Matt was alive at least, which would have been more reassuring, if it hadn’t been for the fact that the only reason he knew that was because of the blinding flashes of pain that he kept intermittently receiving through the bond. They kept trying to contact him, by phone, by mind, and for every bolt of pain that Foggy received they felt a sickening mixture of relief that Matt was alive and fear of the injuries the pain indicated. Pain that Matt was somehow blocking most of the time, because Foggy only felt it every now and then, presumably when Matt’s attention slipped, and the question of when and how Matt had learned to block pain was one that neither of them had an answer for. Pain was the hardest thing to block, always, and the fact that Matt knew how meant practice, practice that Foggy never suspected and must have been going on for years to be that effective. Practice that he must have been doing for a reason, and what the fuck had Matt been doing that he needed to hide that level of pain.

 Matt had been lying to them, and now he was hurt maybe dying, and somehow he was blocking them, and they couldn’t find him and he probably didn’t even know Foggy was hurt. Karen was terrified, and hurting, and angry that they had to find that out tonight of all nights with the whole city screaming in their souls. Matt had a lot of questions to answer, and Karen would see that he answered them, if she had to rip them out of his head herself. He owed them that much. Just so lond as he came back alive. She prayed to any God that might be listening that he came back alive, for her sake and for Foggy’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I do Foggy or Matt's POV next?


	8. So sharp you'll cut yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hells Kitchen exploded and Matt has to deal with a Russian

Hell’s Kitchen was screaming. It was screaming out loud, and it was screaming in his head and it was only years of practice forcing himself to push through sensory overload that kept him from just curling up on the floor and begging for it to stop. He focused on Vladimir, to try and keep the rest of it all at bay.

Vladimir was all grief and fear and anger, wrapped up in despair. Matt thought maybe his name ought to be _Wolf-at-bay,_ there was certainly something of the cornered animal bout him. It must have been a reasonably apt name because when he reached out to Claire, and warned her that he needed _Wolf-at-bay_ to _survive/talk/fight beside_ him she’d known exactly who he was talking about. At least she’d known enough to snap back at him with…

_“No! enemy, not to be trusted, remembered pain/fear/danger.”_

_“Cornered/trapped/nowhere else to go, enemy-no-longer. Loss of kin/grief/anger at betrayal. Wolf-at-bay now enemy-of-my-enemy. Thing that must be done.”_ He’d never been more grateful for thoughtspeech. For the ability to explain things when words fell short, to make people _understand,_ when there was so little time to explain.

_“Grudging acceptance, duty/necessity/acknowledgment. Make sure effort not wasted.”_ Claire sent back at him, and a short phone call later she told him how to save Vladimir’s life.

Not that Vladimir was grateful. Matt didn’t really expect him to be. The man was all spit and snarl and _never-show-weakness,_ open gratitude wasn’t in his nature. But still, when Matt focused he could tell, underneath all the defensive hostility Vladimir wanted to live, was glad to be alive. Even if he wasn’t particularly enthused by the person that saved his life.

Despite himself Matt found he rather liked Vladimir, he knew he probably shouldn’t. They weren’t friends, or even really allies. All they had was a flimsy truce based on the fact that Vladimir was too weak to fight and neither of them had anywhere to go. Wolves were not dogs, were not _safe_ , were wild animals, friends to none but their own kin, and Matt had no doubt that Vladimir wouldn’t hesitate to rip his throat out. But still, he was fierce and brave and unbroken in the face of betrayal and loss and death. He was not a good man, was a kidnapper and a murderer and worse besides, but he wasn’t weak, and the part of Matt that was _Fights-while-wounded,_ couldn’t help but respect a _Wolf-at-bay,_ cornered and wounded, but all the more dangerous for it.

He liked Vladimir even more after Fisk called and gave them a common enemy to unite against. The little Matt could feel from Fisk down the phone line gave him the chills. Where Vladimir was all broken edges and warped survival instinct, Fisk was the chill of utter conviction, and _other-people-not-quite-real._

“I’d like to speak to the man in the mask”, the spoken words accompanied by a silent tendril of intent, demanding _compliance/knowledge/surrender_ and Matt had thrown up shields he’d only half known he could build. It had been blatant enough that even Vladimir had felt it, though he hadn’t known what he was feeling, and Matt had felt a faint chill of fear at the knowledge that Fisk was like him. Like him and Foggy, and Claire and God knew how many others. A telepath, and worse, one who had no scruples trying to impose his will on other’s minds. He wondered if Fisk was even fully aware of what he was doing, he wondered if his hastily erected shields had been enough for Fisk to recognise him as a fellow psychic, he wondered just how far powers like theirs might stretch and how far Fisk had managed to explore them. He wondered about all of those things and he feared.

Still the phone call had succeeded in doing what desperation and compassion and logic had failed to do. It had pushed Vladimir to throw his lot in with Matt, with a flavour of…

_“Dead either way, make it worth it/make him pay/dying curse/go down fighting.”_ Matt had felt him die, and if he hadn’t known better he’d have said that Vladimir was projecting his last moments.

_“Make him pay, enemy-of-my-enemy carry vengeance for us-two-together. Trust, strike down shared enemy. Life/death/vengeance/protection owed. Do what must be done.”_ But Vladimir couldn’t project, wasn’t a telepath, and the thoughts that Matt could sense were nothing Vladimir had intended to share. Matt had been so tightly focused on him, trying to shield out the rest of the world, that he couldn’t help but hear Vladimir’s last moments, stronger _thoughts/feelings/intents_ were hard to filter out, and that one was the strongest he’d ever felt from a non-telepath.

Then again maybe Vladimir had meant him to pick up on those thoughts. He was a clever man, and perceptive, it was entirely possible that he had at least subconsciously realised that Matt was hearing more from him than he said out loud. All Matt knew for sure was that it hurt when Vladimir died. Hurt like nothing had hurt since his father had died, which was ridiculous because Vladimir was _stranger/enemy/uncertain ally,_ and his father had been his father, had been almost everything to a little boy alone in the world, and it was insane that the two could even be considered comparable.

He hadn’t been a telepath when his father died though. That had come later, had come to him and Foggy together. He’d never touched his father’s thoughts. He’d been there when Jack Murdock died, had heard his heart stop beating, tasted his blood on the air, felt his body go so very still, but he hadn’t _felt_ it. He hadn’t been tied up _heart/thought/soul_ with him as the life left him. Jack had mattered more, but Matt had felt Vladimir’s death so much more directly. He shuddered to think what it would have been like to feel that from someone he truly cared for.

He would destroy Fisk. Not only because of his own beliefs now, but because he _owed_ Vladimir, because he’d felt Vladimir die and Vladimir had died for his sake, and that was something no-one sane could ignore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Vladimir is definitely not a telepath, but he may well know more than he's saying about the subject. Certainly he knows that both Fisk and Matt are suspiciously good at knowing what people are really thinking, and so yes he is thinking very hard about what he wants as he's dying in the hope that Matt will pick up on it.


	9. Tranparency

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Foggy and Karen confront Matt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah it's been a while sorry. I got caught up in the other stuff I was writing, and I kind of lost inspiration for this. Don't worry it's not abandoned, but updates might be kind of slow.

Matt was _lying_ to him. Now that Foggy was looking for it he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it sooner. Matt was _lying_ to him and the worst part was that Foggy couldn’t even tell how long it had been going on for. Foggy felt sick. What if Matt had been lying to him all along, what if the reason he couldn’t tell was because it had never been different. What if Matt had been keeping secrets since before their bond had formed?

He felt a wave of sudden silent support from Karen, it grounded him, when it felt like the rest of the world was shifting under his feet.

_Friendship/support/love, not alone, demand answers/explanation/truth together._ It made Foggy feel infinitely better about everything. He wasn’t alone. No matter what Matt had done, no matter what lies he told, Karen wouldn’t leave Foggy to face it alone.

He replied to her with a pulse of, _Acknowledgement/gratitude/reciprocation,_ because she deserved to know, and more than that Foggy suspected she needed to know. She wasn’t used to being alone in her head, and right now, he and Matt were all she had. Matt might be lying, and hiding things and closing himself off, but that just made it more important that Foggy be open with her.

When Matt walked in Foggy considered just openly confronting him, but that was honestly always more Matt’s style than his. Matt excels in direct argument, Foggy always preferred to come at things sideways.

“I thought you were dead you know.” He said with studied casualness, not letting a trace of his feelings filter through their bond.

“I’m sorry Foggy. I guess I just got caught up.” Foggy couldn’t _hear/feel/sense_ anything from Matt which was a bloody clear indication he was lying again. Foggy refused to get angry.

He just repeated himself. “I thought you were dead you know.” But this time he didn’t block the bond. Instead he let all the _fear/grief/anger_ the _silence/alone in my head, Fights-while-Wounded silent/lost/dead, fear,_ bleed through. He could see Matt flinch when he sent him _world on fire, couldn’t find you, fear, alone-against-the-world, wherewherewhere._

Foggy pressed his advantage. He felt bad about it but Matt was always better in open debate and Foggy couldn’t afford to let him win, not this time, not with everything at stake.

“They pulled a piece of glass out of my side. Elena needed twelve stitches.” And there it was. It seemed even Matt couldn’t lock down the bond completely because Foggy sincerely doubted Matt would have wanted him to pick up on the _guilt/shame/self-hate_ that was leaking through their connection. And Foggy hated his instincts for being right because all that was just more confirmation that whatever Matt was hiding was connected to last night’s attack. Foggy changed tack suddenly, hoping to throw Matt off balance.

“I bet the police are planning to settle the bastard who did this the old fashioned way. Good riddance too.” Matt maintained his composure well, even managed to bullshit up an argument about legal process, and right to a trial. If Foggy hadn’t had a direct line into Matt’s head and heart so that he could _see/smell/taste,_ the _fear/guilt/betrayal_ that flared up at his words, he might even have fallen for it. Somehow, Matt was involved with the man in the mask, and Foggy wasn’t quite kind enough to try and shield Matt from the anger that flashed through his heart at the realisation. He might have even taken the opportunity to push further, might well have ended up pushing too far, if it hadn’t been for Karen.

…

She’d been watching silently, reluctant to interfere with such a personal argument, but she had the clarity that comes with distance. Not that she didn’t feel angry and betrayed, but it was so much less personal for her. She’d only really known Matt for a few weeks, she was angry that he’d lied to her, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. It wasn’t _personal,_ he just wasn’t sure of her yet, so he didn’t tell her everything. She might not like it but it made sense. Lying to Foggy though, that was another thing entirely.  Matt and Foggy had been wrapped up in each other’s heads for years, alone against the universe. Matt’s deception must have shaken the very foundations of Foggy’s world. And it was for that reason that Karen stepped in. Because she had that distance, because her whole world _wasn’t_ coming down around her ears, she could see that if she left the two of them to fight it out they might well end up _breaking_ each other before anything was resolved, and Karen wasn’t willing to let that happen. So she brought up the only thing she was sure would distract the boys from ripping each other’s throats out.

“So anyway Matt. On a slightly different topic, there’s something me and Foggy have been meaning to talk to you about.” Foggy was staring at her in open disbelief that she had chosen that particular moment to have that talk. She looked back with the icy calm that at least one of them had to maintain.

“Look Foggy, I know you wanted to wait for the right moment, but I could see where this was headed. There was never going to be a right moment and the longer we left it the worse it was going to get. We’re doing this now.” Her words were steel but she sent a quick burst of _reassurance/comfort/safe-with-me,_ to take the edge off, to soothe the panic that he was just barely holding at bay. Matt just looked confused, until she continued,

“You and Foggy aren’t the only ones that can read minds.” She reached out, with just a brush of thought, of intent, a sense of _curiosity/openness/potential, self-concept Holds-the-Knife-by-the-Blade, greetings, hand-reaching-out, trust, Holds-the-Knife-by-the-Blade/Talks-away-Nightmares/Fights-while-Wounded, friends not enemies, trust, speak/show/send heart-to-heart clearer/truer/less space for doubt/confusion/misunderstanding._ She smiled softly at Matt’s look of utter disbelief.

“Some things are too hard to say in words. _Trust us._ Heart to heart, if not out loud. Aren’t you tired of living behind walls?” And there was a half shattered kind of relief on Matt’s face as he crumbled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, Matt, Foggy, and Karen continue their conversation, and a lot of things get dragged out into the daylight.

**Author's Note:**

> Ok major infodump here, sorry.  
> Note that telepathy in this universe is a form of nonverbal communication, they can project and receive impressions and concepts from each other but they can't do the whole words and coherent sentences thing, lying is impossible. They can't read non-telepaths minds exactly, but they can can get an impression of their surface thoughts and emotions, nothing verbal, but they can get ageneral impression and they know when they're being lied to. They can communicate at a distance, the closer they are emotionally to each other the further apart geographically they can reach each other, Matt and Foggy could probably communicate across the continent. Strong telepaths can exert a limited amount of mind control, and there is a super secret technique that some telepaths know to kill with a thought. 
> 
> Telepathy is a secret, telepaths do not tell non-telepaths. Some people (e.g, Karen) grow up in telepathic families, knowing exactly what's going on, while others, don't have a clue until they are triggered by severe trauma or contact with another telepath, latent or otherwise. People who trigger each other tend to form telepathic bonds, as do people who spend a lot of time together, which basically means they are constantly in a state of low level telepathic contact, which can be shielded for privacy but can never be fully switched off.
> 
> Because telepathy is non verbal, people have telepath names that take the form of a sort of concept image that illustrates a core aspect of their personality e.g for Matt it is Fights-while-wounded, or for Foggy it's Talks-away-nightmares. People who are not telepaths can still have telepath names used by telepaths while talking about them.


End file.
